


higher love

by tenuis



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Religious Imagery, but we been knew, fox mulder being intense, he loves her to bits, scully is a goddess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:22:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25923553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenuis/pseuds/tenuis
Summary: Mulder doesn't understand religion very well until she comes into his life.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 6
Kudos: 28





	higher love

**Author's Note:**

> i just love it when religious and sexual imagery are intertwined (can you not tell i listen to depeche mode? hence the title)
> 
> as always, my less than adequate grasp of the English language is at fault for any of the mistakes you see here.

Mulder’s relationship with religion had stayed the same through his whole life—which was, nonexistent.

In his childhood, his parents had been consistently neutral; Christmas was merely a fancy occasion for gift-swapping, an emotionless technicality. And after Sam was gone, they became decidedly faithless: in god, in life, in each other; but most unkindly, in the sad child that was left behind to absorb all that shame, blame and guilt—that were all so ironically religious.

Mulder never understood the extents to which humans dedicated themselves to the fruitless pursuit of religion. His own passion in attempting to explain the paranormal, albeit fruitless most of the time, had a definite scientific drive behind it. He never believed in anything that could not be explained—his own explanations might be fickle or frail, but he definitely had research and factual evidence to back them up.

Religion, instead, was in his eyes pointless shackles that bound people to their customs, their families, their land. He never had any of those things to feel bound to in the first place, so he could never understand why people seemed so intent on preserving them. Politically, he thought, it kind of made sense. One book to rule them all, to herd them like sheep and keep things unchanged. He was never fond of conservatives anyway.

He observed grand acts of faith with indifference. Self-flagellation, hours upon hours of prayer, fasting, and the like—so pointless they got him baffled at times. He never dared to be disrespectful though; he knew how important it was that people had one god or more to seek comfort in, to confess to. He just never got why.

As a psychologist, he understands the basic impulse of making up theories, and, inevitably, creating stories to feed our endless curiosity. What we cannot explain, we idealize, and ultimately fantasize about. The Greeks did it, the Chinese did it; but how are our modern gods any more real than our old ones? Why couldn’t Odin and Horus coexist with Shiva, the Orishas or the Abrahamic, all-knowing, all-encompassing God with a capital G? You’ve heard one story, you’ve heard them all, in _his_ book.

When Scully walked into his life like a blinding light, mysterious and alluring, that little gold cross was the first of her enigmas he had wanted to crack. How could a woman so highly intellectual, so methodically and scientifically logical, be drawn to the simplistic teachings of a human-made god? Whenever she ranted about the impossibility of interstellar travel according to the laws of physics his eyes always darted to her cross—glinting like a question mark on her chest, it begged him to investigate her, to reach into her mind and extract the elusive marrow of her being.

She couldn’t be so easily profiled though, not even by the cocksure Fox William Mulder of the FBI. He was drawn to her from the very start, this impossible conundrum with fiery red hair. He craved her presence and their good-natured, highbrow altercations. With every conversation, he sneakily cracked open little slivers on the tight shell of her person; never in his life had anyone planted a flag on his heart so decisively. He never had any _friends_ to speak of anyway, and when the time came when he could not refer to her as anything other than his _best friend_ , it spooked him and it marveled him. It gave him all the more determination to dissect her to the bone.

When she disappeared, he thought he began to understand what religion was all about. His stoic exterior might have shown nothing other than tightly restrained anger, but a desperate inferno raged within him. He didn’t think he could take losing the only person whom he ever allowed himself to get truly close to, and, more than once, he found himself with closed eyes, begging for her to come back to him, because he felt so stripped down and alone without his friend.

He wore her cross, and, although the symbol had no meaning to him, the gold chain scorched his skin with the fire that burned in her hair, in her eyes. It was hers, and it became his.

When he went to see her at the hospital after she’d finally come back and she gave him the most beautiful smile he’d ever seen, he couldn’t help but feel that his prayers had been answered—he realized that he had, indeed, been praying; just not to any god, but to _her_. The relief, the love that flooded his chest at the sight of Scully, alive and flushed with health, went beyond simple, earthly friendship. It was faith.

He understood faith, then. He recognized it as the most powerful word he could relate to Scully, the strongest feeling he thought he could ever feel about anyone.

Religion, though, was still another beast entirely. He used to watch with endless fascination when she made the sign of the cross whenever they passed by a church, wondering how she could dedicate her soul fully to the institution of an almighty, vengeful god she wasn't even sure existed. Wondering how it was so easy for her to just believe, since her baptism, with no questions asked.

Through the years, he managed to crack millions of tiny slivers off her shell—he cracked her wide open, and she got to open him up right back. They got to know each other so intimately, so completely, that her religion was the only mystery that remained. He respected it, though. When he saw her kneeling in prayer once, he knew for certain that he was in her mind, and he knew that she was asking her god to keep him safe, by her side. He wanted the same thing; and in that moment, he shared in her faith.

But when friendship wasn’t enough anymore (and they both knew it was all heading this way, didn’t they?), when the lines became blurred until they didn’t exist anymore and they fell so gracefully into being lovers, along with partners, friends, soulmates— _then_ , he finally understood.

When he kisses her mouth and caresses her tongue with his, he goes into such a deep state of mindfulness, it feels like nirvana. The obsession, the dedication he has when presented with her nude body for him to explore could only be described as devotion. He whispers words of love onto every rope of her muscles; his rough hands mold the smooth clay of her skin. He breathes life past her lips.

His faith in her is never stronger than it is when she climbs atop him, moving like waves. She’s the strongest woman there ever was, taking him inside and bringing them both to ecstasy with her voice, her eyes, her hips. He knows she’s the only thing that can chase the darkness away. She is holy, wondrous, undying. How could women not be sacred, when they, when _she_ , looks and sounds like this?

Her breasts nurse him back to health, to sanity, soothing him like no medicine ever could. And her cunt, _oh_ , her cunt, it is the only altar he will ever kneel at. His mouth waters and his legs shake at the sight of her cunt. It is love, it is life, it is the ultimate entrance into her beautiful self, and he kisses it, worships it, drives his cock madly into it until they’re both speaking in tongues and coming apart together—something that has never happened to him before Her.

Fucking this woman is the most religious experience he has and will ever be witness to. Whenever he slides home, moist and warm and so miraculous it brings him to tears, he closes his eyes and thinks, _if there was ever a God, it was this._

**Author's Note:**

> feedback breathes life into me. please leave a comment!!


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